LATEST HOMILY
FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT
February 22, 2026

Focus: Christ enters the dessert to show us human weakness receives strength from the Father. 

Function: Enter the Desert with Christ to depend on His Strength as He does with the Father. 

A. Naked Truth

• It’s crazy isn’t it how Adam and Eve, 
• Were naked but once they ate of the fruit, 
• They experienced there nakedness with shame. 
• It was not an all of a sudden moment,
•  When they felt ashamed of, 
• One another. They knew how they looked and they knew 
• How, they felt for each other. 
• The reason they made clothing after sinning, 
• Is they were infected with the spiritual disease of feeling
• Rejected or lusted after. They felt the shame of being less, 
• Than loved. It was the spiritual defects of sin.
•  That is what it does. After we have committed sins that we, 
• Find ourselves ashamed of, we hide it. We cover it up,
• Why? Well for a number of reasons.
•  For one sin is imprudent and illogical behaviour. 
• Its animalist in nature because human beings by nature, 
• Are drawn towards order and goodness and to fall from it, 
• Racks the mind with shame and guilt, because we know that, 
• We are better than our sins and God knows this too because 
• He, made us. Yet the striking question is why we are so drawn,
• To sin? Why are we drawn to things that bring shame and guilt. 
• Why are we drawn to disordered sexual passions of lust,
• Pornography, masturbation and fornication. 
• Why are we drawn to over consumption of alcohol and other, 
• Sedatives. The relaxed walls of partying and feel-good vibes. 
• We tense up and our pupils dilate and breathing becomes intense, 
• When we engage in gossip and hear sweet but destructive,
• News about someone we would have never thought. 
• We feel justified and vindicated when we cuss someone out, 
• Royally or worse feel like an overpowered ape when we, 
•  Strike someone in the head with conch shell or a hot bottle, 
• of Guiness! I sure I am appealing to pass disordered actions for, 
• Many of us if not all of us. But there is no reason to ponder, 
• To deeply on this matter. The reason we run after sin is, 
• Because we are broken. It is a spiritual defect we have received from, 
• From the first Adam and Eve. It is an overpowering desire to,
• Pleasure our selves and the curse of having to cover, 
• Ourselves in shame. It is as Saint Paul says,
•  We have inherited sin through the one-man Adam and,
• Received grace through the new man, the gift, Jesus Christ. 
• We struggle with what Saint Augustine calls concupiscence, 
• A constant desire to please the self. Because it feels good. 
• We just have to deal with the shame and guilt until we are,
• Numb and indifferent to it and that is why Jesus goes into,
• The dessert, that is why He goes into the dryness, the barren, 
• The nakedness, because it reveals the naked, 
• Truth of sin. Where shame and guilt cannot save. 
• We face our sins, our demons in the wide open. 
• Where there is no place to run from it. 
• Though Jesus was sinless, He takes the shamed nakedness 
• Of our first parents and hands it back to its rightful owner,
• The tempter.  

B. He Was Hungry

• Jesus found himself hungry and this is a statement not to be,
• Taken lightly. Mathew says that Jesus was weak. No food, 
• Mostly likely no water. In a dessert most likely suffered, 
• Hallucinations, and experienced a few fears. Fun said note.
• I actually visited the dessert where Jesus was, 
• Tempted. And it made sense as to why Satan would have,
• Come for Jesus in that moment. The dessert is located, 
• In Palestine overlooking the Jordan Valley. It is actually,
• Identified as the Judean Wilderness near the Jericho West, 
• Bank. And it truly is a dessert. When I visited almost 4 years, 
• Ago there was no sign of vegetation or water. Dry and barren.
• There was a monastery located in the area. 
• But it pulled its water supply from another location. 
• If this was only a matter of a few years I visited, image, 
• Over 2,000 years ago. Jesus, knowing He was God, placed, 
• Himself in a vulnerable state for Satan to tempt Him and He, 
• Knew this. It was the perfect opportunity for Satan to strike. 
• Jesus was weak and Satan knew Jesus had everything in Him, 
• Not to be weak. Jesus was in an element that represented no, 
• Life no sustenance’s and so Satan tempted Jesus to show His, 
• Power so He can prove to Himself that even where there is, 
• No life, no food, no way to survive. 
• He has the ability to do so, 
• No matter the condition or the situation. 
• The same goes for taking,
• Jesus to the top of the temple. Throw down yourself so people, 
• Will know that you are Son of God. You can put those, 
• Pharisees to shame and have everyone follow you, 
• Even they would give in and follow you. The same goes for, 
• The soliciting of all those nations. Satan wanted Jesus to, 
• Bow down to him because he was dangling all the souls he,
• Had in captivity. All the souls that were immersed in the, 
• World and sin. You see in each temptation Satan tried to pull,
• Jesus’ card. He knows what Jesus came to do and how He, 
• He came to do it. Jesus came to save the world from sin and, 
• Death but He can only save those who chose to walk with, 
• Him and Satan knew that. He knew Jesus was struggling, 
• With this mission. Satan knew Jesus was already, 
• Experiencing rejection! People had Jesus to be more of a lunatic, 
• Than Lord and He tried to make Jesus feel less about,
• Himself by trying to tempt Him to do more to please the masses. 
• He wanted Jesus to feel ashamed of how we He was doing 
• The Father’s work. That coming down as one of us was a, 
• Waist of time because so many do not believe in Him. 
• But even in such weakness, in such temptation, 
• Jesus does not give in. 
• It is not only because he knows the truth. It is because He,
• Knows the Father’s love for Him and it is real. It was not too, 
• Long ago that He heard from the Jordan. This is my beloved, 
• Son in whom I am well pleased. And so even though Satan, 
• Tried to dangle the reality of what Jesus was experiencing, 
• Jesus hit Satan with the truth that heals and that truth is, 
• His Father loves Him no matter what. And God will give,
• His Son the grace to carry out His works! That is how Jesus,
• Heals our shame, our brokenness. 
• Even though He did not sin, nor gave into Satan’s,
• Discouraging tactics, He clung to the truth of how much, 
• His Father loves Him. 

 B. He Was Hungry

• We Shall Worship the Lord Who Heals Us as He is Wounded!
• My friends many of us find ourselves struggling with sin. 
• Serious sins that we are very shamed of. And I am sure we, 
• Hear voices such as how you could?
•  What would she think or, what, 
• Would he think? But these voices are not from God. 
• God rather invites us to walk with Him in our brokenness, 
• To not be afraid of the horrible sins we may commit. 
• He knows we are weak, He knows we cannot do it on our, 
• Own that is why he showed us how to do it in the dessert. 
• Like Christ on the day of our baptism God claimed us as His, 
• Own. That we are His beloved sons and daughters in whom,
• He is well pleased. We did not do anything to earn that love. 
• He loves us because He made us and we belong to HIM!
• And Satan hates that! Because he does not belong. And so,
• Like our first parents he tries to show our nakedness to the, 
• World so we may hide ourselves from God. 
• But Jesus comes down in His nakedness from the cross. 
• And clothes us with His body and blood that ratifies and,
• Rectifies. There is no need to be ashamed of our flaws,
• Friends. God heals us from our sins as He is wounded. 
• He invites us constantly to bare our spiritual nakedness,
• Along side Him in the sacrament of confession. To come to,
• The truth that we are healed and saved by the naked Truth, 
• Jesus presents to us in the dessert. That despite the, challenging reality of our broken lives we are loved by God, 
• Who clothes us in mercy and forgiveness. 

Amen!